Join the movement
Sign up to tell us who you think needs to be recognized on Wikipedia. We’ll send you the form to make a nomination and also introduce you to women who do news once a week. You’ll also get links to assignments and instructions about how to add or edit articles!
Upcoming Events
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Women Do News Flash Edit!
August 30th, 2022 5:00 PM PDT - 6:00 PM PDT
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82513610891Join us for a virtual hang! Check your email for the Zoom link — we'll get in a room and tackle some assignments. One hour, huge impact! Sign up for our emails to get updates.
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Women Do News Board meeting
September 1st, 2022 2:00 PM PDT - 3:00 PM PDT
Board members, find the agenda in our shared To-Doist and message Angilee in Slack to adjust. Want to join the board? Message Anna Kristina in Slack!
We’ve got news.
- Changing the Face of News
Gather, a a collaborative project led by the Agora Journalism Center at the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism & Communication, hosted Women Do News and The 19th for a lightning chat about women in media. Agora’s Regina Lawrence moderated a conversation with Alexandra Smith of The 19th and Women Do News board members Angilee Shah and Jareen Imam about bridging the gender gap in the journalism industry and reporting inclusively on gender, politics, and policy.
- AEJMC 2022 Midwinter Conference: Correcting the record
Board member Jareen Imam and board chair Angilee Shah led a workshop at the AEJMC 2022 Midwinter Conference. What’s AEJMC, you ask? It’s the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, the organization for educators, students and media professionals who are training the next generation of journalists.
If you are signed up for Women Do News emails, you’ll get the recorded session in your inbox.
The 90-minuted session focused on ways to increase the representation of women journalists on Wikipedia by collaborating with Women Do News. It started a brief overview of gender bias on Wikipedia, with Wiki Edu, and explored how it contributes to the challenges women journalists face today. Then the team from Women Do News talked through the nuts and bolts of Wikipedia editing, explaining how educators and students can get involved.
- A 2021 Wikimedia Foundation report on inclusion
The Wikimedia Foundation just released survey results on “awareness, trust, and feelings of representation that people have in our work and projects, including Wikipedia.” Here are some topline findings about women on Wikipedia:
- Women, across communities, are far more skeptical of Wikipedia’s support of social/equity movements.
- Black women and Hispanic women have the lowest engagement rates with Wikipedia, and have negative views of Wikipedia when it comes to inclusivity and support for racial and gender equality.
- Asian women have high awareness and are heavy users of Wikipedia, but feel unrepresented on the platform.
- White women have high awareness but relatively low engagement, and are highly skeptical of Wikipedia’s inclusivity, specifically in regard to Wikipedia’s racial and gender equality values.
Our Mission: Women Do News works to raise the visibility of women journalists by increasing the quantity and enhancing the quality of their Wikipedia entries.
Why it matters: Visibility on Wikipedia is paramount in driving gender parity in journalism leadership. Presently, fewer than 20% of Wikipedia biographies are females and this imbalance extends to women in journalism, negatively impacting the perception about their contributions to the field.
Background: Women journalists are underrepresented on Wikipedia, one of the most-visited English language websites in the world. This leads to issues related to safety, credibility, recognition, and income. The Women Do News project grew out of a 2019 cohort of journalists participating in Take The Lead, a leadership training program co-founded by Gloria Feldt. It has since evolved to partner with other allies at universities and journalism groups to identify worthy women journalists for biographies, train editors, and add Wikipedia entries to even the playing field on this important platform. We are now part of a nonprofit, Bay City News Foundation, to support this work. Help us if you can.
